Tuesday, May 19, 2009

I'm a bit overwhelmed by having plenty; plenty of fabrics, plenty of ideas, plenty of new found knowledge. I'll start with fabrics:

Mother's Day and birthday came and went, and with them came a whole bunch of fabric. Exquisite fabric. Fabric I've only dared to glance at. Yup, DH is priceless. And his wallet seemingly bottomless :)) I'm going to post photos of them all eventually.

Below is a picture of fabrics that I bought on my birthday. They're not for me. Did you guess? They're for DD #2. Crazy. I know. Silk charmeuse for blouse with scarf, sequined fabric for skirt. Now I'm thinking DD #1 would like this as well. We shall see.

Ideas:

Being in possession of such incredible fabric certainly gets the juices flowing, but since they're so intricate (lace, beads, sequins, feathers) they require careful planning, and I'm not up to the task at the moment. I just received Susan Khalje's Bridal Couture and will hopefully find many tips on handling these kinds of fabrics. In the meantime; I got one fabric that was plain and just the perfect color:

Remember this dress?

It's the same color, which happens to suit me perfectly. So, I'm doing some draping. I want a cowl neck but nothing else, just a simple dress. Below is my initial test.

And finally; knowledge.

I was browsing the boards over on PatternReview the other day and stumbled upon the thread Sewing for rectangle shape and of course, being a rectangle myself, had to check it out. There I found a most amazing link: Inside Out Style, a blog by Imogen Lamport who is an Image Consultant based in Melbourne. Below is the link to the H Shape:

It made everything so clear and I will refer back to her anytime I'm in doubt. What really changed my viewpoint was the fact that us rectangles are born this way; our hips and ribs are closer together and therefore, no matter how thin we get, there's never going to be a real waist definition. On the plus side; we usually, because of this, have longer legs :)) So, understanding how we're put together allows us to choose styles/patterns that really work to our advantage.

On a final note: I'm almost done with the vintage Cardin jacket. After reading about the H shape it may turn out the jacket is too boxy for me, we shall see. It's a one color suit with a fitted skirt so that may help but the fabric is very stiff. So far I'm not in love with it but it was fun to learn how the collar is done :))

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Fabrics and buttons from F & S. Fabrics, belt from Bloomies :)) I used sleeves from style 106.

Here's a close-up of the silver detail in the fabric- always a bit of sparkle, even when I don't look for it...

I'm also busy sewing skating dresses for DD. She just started and is totally in love with it, which makes this mom very happy. She used to do gymnastics but I got so scared I had to stop going. She's completely fearless and a bit of a klutz... you do the math. When she falls on the ice she's wearing kneepads, and the distance from her to the ice is not that great :)) Not yet anyway. We'll see how I feel if she advances and starts jumping and twirling at full speed...

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Thank you for all the nice comments on the other dress. And rest assured, the shoes will be worn with caution. I'm not the klutz in the family (see above), and take my heels very seriously :))